Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Former Texas police officer who hired hitmen to kill wife is executed

Robert Fratta (65) was killed by lethal injection in Huntsville.

A FORMER SUBURBAN Texas police officer has been executed for hiring two people to kill his estranged wife nearly 30 years ago.

Robert Fratta (65) received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the November 1994 fatal shooting of his wife, Farah, in Houston.

He was pronounced dead at 7.49pm local time (1.49am GMT), 24 minutes after being injected with a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital.

For about three minutes before the execution began, Fratta’s spiritual adviser, Barry Brown, prayed over Fratta.

Brown, his prayer book on the pillow next to Fratta’s head and his right hand resting on Fratta’s right hand, asked for prayers for “hearts that have been broken… for people who grieved and those who will grieve in days ahead”.

He asked God to”“be merciful to Bobby”.

Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Fratta replied: “No.”

Prosecutors say Fratta organised the murder plot during a contentious divorce and custody battle. A middleman, Joseph Prystash, hired the gunman, Howard Guidry.

Farah Fratta (33) was shot twice in the head in her home’s garage in the Houston suburb of Atascocita.

Robert Fratta, who was a public safety officer for Missouri City, had long claimed he was innocent.

His punishment was delayed for little more than an hour until the last of a flurry of final-day appeals cleared the US supreme court and Texas’ highest courts, the Texas supreme court and Texas court of criminal Appeals.

Fratta’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that prosecutors withheld evidence that a trial witness had been hypnotised by investigators, leading her to change her initial recollection that she saw two men at the murder scene as well as a getaway driver.

Prosecutors have argued the hypnosis produced no new information and no new identification. They had also said that Fratta had repeatedly expressed his desire to see his wife dead and asked several acquaintances if they knew anyone who would kill her, telling one friend: “I’ll just kill her, and I’ll do my time and when I get out, I’ll have my kids,” according to court records.

Prystash and Guidry were also sent to death row for the killing.

Fratta was first sentenced to death in 1996, but his conviction was overturned by a federal judge who ruled that confessions from his co-conspirators should not have been admitted into evidence.

In the same ruling, the judge wrote that “trial evidence showed Fratta to be egotistical, misogynistic, and vile, with a callous desire to kill his wife”.

He was retried and resentenced to death in 2009.

Close
8 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bella Gunning
    Favourite Bella Gunning
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 5:19 PM

    Great news for people who sell ‘stuff’

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute R Neuville
    Favourite R Neuville
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 7:22 PM

    Obscene Lobby Driven car tax on pre-2008 cars forcing people to buy new cars. Those who cannot afford new cars subsidising the annual road tax of the wealthy who can. A most regressive tax. Was not passed in the UK. Ireland a lobby ridden disgusting place to live – no equity. Bring your Brains to the Polling Booths.

    18
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tequila Gold
    Favourite Tequila Gold
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 7:19 PM

    The one in the picture would be better off hugging a bicycle

    6
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Bevin Reilly
    Favourite Bevin Reilly
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 6:42 PM

    Love that stock photo.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Business Cat
    Favourite Business Cat
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 4:27 PM

    Name the car in the picture….

    I’m thinking RR Evoque?

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute wondermiss
    Favourite wondermiss
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 4:50 PM

    KIA sorento I think

    20
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Anthony Halpin
    Favourite Anthony Halpin
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 9:01 PM

    A bit of that Mechanophilia stuff going on there by the look of it

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute CW
    Favourite CW
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 8:45 PM

    Well the bullshit statistics from the high street say that most under 25′s and up to 30 are buying in the high street due to increasing numbers employed in the financial and insurance industry, the high street doesn’t show the online buying by the work in poor at middle class’s that wouldn’t pay those prices. It’s a two tier system, that the government are now dependent on the young living at home for their figures. The ESRI is not reflective to the population.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Anthony Halpin
    Favourite Anthony Halpin
    Report
    Oct 29th 2014, 8:59 PM

    All we need now is a scrappage scheme for 3 year old cars, supported by the SIMI and Green party!

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Christabel Benoit
    Favourite Christabel Benoit
    Report
    Nov 2nd 2014, 5:19 PM

    And I just bought a beautiful vintage sofa, which only comes to prove I spend a lot on what we’ve been talking in this article. If I were a keen driver, I’d probably spend a lot on my car as well. Take a look at the pros and cons of vintage furniture: http://www.hometalk.com/5463165/the-pros-and-cons-of-vintage-furniture and you will understand what I am talking about.

    1
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds